


Some Nights Just Feel Right

by alessandralee



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 12:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4706252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas investigates an open roof access door in his dorm, and finds an artist at work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Nights Just Feel Right

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of suicide, although no one is attempting or even considering.

Lucas doesn’t make it a habit to jump to the worst possible conclusions, but he’s just spent an hour on Skype listing to Zay recount stories of people who died horrible deaths at the Grand Canyon (Seriously, who writes a book about that stuff?). So when he notices the roof access door at the end of his hall is open, his first thought of somebody having a really rough go of freshman year.

It’s 9PM on a Saturday, most of the dorm is empty, and there’s not way it’s a maintenance crew up there.

So he decides to investigate. Pappy Joe did always say that he’s a good a listener.

There’s a girl (or at least a short person with a curtain of golden blonde hair) sitting a few feet from the edge of the rooftop. From behind she looks sort of sad, her head drooped over her lap.

“You okay?” Lucas asks, using the same soft voice he used in his after school job at the vet’s office back home.

The girl flinches in surprise, then turns around to glare at him.

Lucas recognizes her as the girl who sits in front of him in English 101. She’s always doodling in the margins of her notebook, that doesn’t keep her from having plenty of smart remarks to make. He’s pretty sure her name is Maya.

“Well I was,” she replies testily.

“Sorry,” Lucas says. “I saw the door was open, and I got worried.”

“Worried?” she asks. It takes her moment to figure out what he’s implying, but when she does she adds, “So you figured you’d come out here and play therapist, cowboy?”

Cowboy. He’d heard her mutter than nickname under her breath in class yesterday, when he shared a story about helping birth a foal. Apparently she’s committed to it.

“Yes ma’am,” he plays along, tipping at imaginary hat at her. He doesn’t bother mentioning that he pre-dialed 911 on his cell phone. After all, being a good listener can only do so much. 

Maya scowls, “Well as you can see, everything’s just fine and dandy up here. No need to talk my problems out, so you can do-si-do on back to your room.”

Back in Texas, Lucas would have taken Maya’s command to leave. But there’s a really nice view of the city from up here, and it’s not like she has any more right to stay than he does. Even with Maya’s prickliness, staying right here has a lot more appeal than the biology homework waiting back in his room.

He takes a seat next to her, half on the concrete and half on the blanket she must have brought out here with her.

“Whatcha doing?” he asks, nodding at the two notebooks in her lap.

Maya stiffens, then takes a deep breath, relaxing as she breathes out. He’s clearly getting on her nerves again. Lucas is surprised she hasn’t snapped yet. They’re less than a month into semester and he’s already witnessed her go off on two of their classmates.

To be fair, they might have had it coming. The effect of absentee parents on a child’s development wasn’t exactly the most sensitive subject for a persuasive essay.

“Drawing,” Maya flashes her first notebook at him briefly. He can just barely tell that she’s drawing the building stretched out in front of them.

“In the dark?” he asks. That seems kind of impossible.

Maya doesn’t say anything response, she just jabs a ringer over her shoulder and up. Lucas follows the direction she’s pointing in and sees an emergency light. If he cranes his neck a bit, he can see that it sheds just enough light onto Maya’s sketchpad for her to see what she’s drawing.

He can also see that her second notebook is full of words instead of pictures.

“And the writing?”

For a moment, he thinks this might be the point when Maya breaks. She throws her head back in annoyance, and Lucas gets ready to hop to his feet and run for it.

But then she relaxes, moves her sketchpad off to the side, and holds up her other notebook so he can see it more clearly.

“I’m describing what I see,” she tells him. There’s frustration in her voice at first, but it disappears as she gets caught up in her explanation. “I prefer to paint, but it’s a lot to set up, not to mention sneaking it up here in the first place, and the light is barely good enough to sketch by. So I’m taking notes so I can paint it right,” she sighs, “when I have the time.”

“Stretched a little thin?” Lucas never really gave much thought to it, but Maya is usually the last one in and the first one out of class.

“I have a part time job,” she tells him, “and a boss who likes to schedule me for the maximum number of hours that he can get away with. Between that, class, extra seminars, homework, and this weird community service thing I have to do for one of my scholarships, there’s barely enough time for sleep, much less passion projects.”

 

“What about friends?” Lucas asks, not that he’s trying to be one. It doesn’t seem like Maya wants that. Still, sometimes he sees her walked across campus with that know it all kid from his World Civ class.

“Well my best friend from high school goes to school in California,” Maya says. “We’re really good at keeping up with each other’s lives, but she won’t be home until Thanksgiving.”

Of course Maya’s a native New Yorker. How could she be anything but?

 

“And sometimes I hang out with Farkle, but mostly that’s just him stopping by the coffee shop during my shift to keep me entertained. The guy’s a whiz with flashcards.”

“So mostly you just eat, sleep, and work?” Lucas clariies.

And he thought that he was being antisocial by not going out tonight. At least he let his roommate drag him to a party yesterday.

Maya shrugs, “I get to go to art school, which I thought would never happen. That makes everything else worth it.”

Lucas nods, not sure what to say next.

“So what about you, Hopalong?” Maya adds another unfortunate nickname. Lucas won’t let her see him wince at it, but he really hopes this doesn’t become a trend. “What brings you all the way from the farm to the big city?”

“I’m from Austin,” he corrects her. “It’s a city.”

Maya waves away his comment, “Compared to New York, everything’s a farm.”

Lucas ignores that jab; he’s pretty sure it was intentional.

 

“I’m pre-vet,” he tells her. “My parents think it’s weird that I’m going to New York to do that, but I wanted to try something new.”

Maya studies him for moment, like something he said struck a chord with her.

Then she says, “You could probably practice on subway rats.”

Of course she makes a sarcastic crack. Of course.

“That’s actually really creepy,” he tells her.

“I try,” Maya grins widely.

Her smile is contagious, and Lucas finds himself smiling back, despite how strange she is. Maybe he even likes how strange she is. It’s refreshing.

She’s pretty when she’s not scowling. Really, she’s pretty even when she is scowling, but now she almost seems approachable.

That’s enough to knock Lucas completely off-kilter.

“Well I’ll let you get back to work,” he excuses himself, getting to his feet.

“And here I thought you’d never leave,” Maya teases.

Lucas thinks he might like that, too. So he retreats to his room before he starts to think too hard about the affect Maya’s big city is having on him.

Next week he returns to his dorm after a particularly brutal Biology exam. There’s a small watercolor cityscape waiting in front of his door.

There’s no note attached, but it’s not hard to guess who its from.

He’ll have to keep his eye on that roof access door so he can thank her.


End file.
